Hamburgers are the backbone of any BBQ, so good technique is essential. Former Top Chef contestant Spike Mendelsohn sells hundreds of burgers daily at his Good Stuff Eatery in Washington, D.C., so we assume he knows what he's talking about. —Elizabeth Gunnison

Try going to your local supermarket and having the butcher grind a burger blend for you. I like using brisket, short rib, and chuck, but experiment to figure out what you like. Usually a blend that's about 80 percent lean is a good starting point.

Use about 6 ounces of meat per burger and form it using a 4-inch ring mold. Don't pack the meat in too tight. When you're grilling you want to use a little more meat than when you're cooking in a pan, because a lot of fat is going to drip out and the burgers are going to shrink.

Season them with salt and pepper once they're on the grill. If you season too early, water leeches out of the meat, drips down, and causes flare-ups.

Transfer the burgers from the grill onto a plate to let them rest and drain for a minute before putting them on the bun. That way, no soggy bun.

I like to experiment with interesting mayonnaises as burger condiments. You can mix mayo with lots of different things, such as sriracha, ketchup, barbecue sauces, or horseradish. Be creative.

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The Hot Dog (Not Fancy): Hebrew National

The best hot dog is the first one you ever had. Slightly salty. Snappy. Juices turning the bun into dough, condiments threatening to mutiny over the side. Hebrew National is pretty damned close, but your memories may differ. —Eric Gillin

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The Hot Dog (Fancy): Let's Be Frank

What's in a hot dog, anyway? Lips? Sawdust? Assholes? We can assure you that's not the case with this brand, founded by Larry Bain and Sue Moore, who used to source meat for Alice "Slow Food" Waters's legendary Chez Panisse. The upscale weiners are made using grass-fed beef from local ranchers in the Berkeley, California area. No nitrates. No nitrites. No assholes. —Eric Gillin

When it comes to meat, Jake Dickson, owner of Dickson's Farmstand Meats in New York, is considered something of an authority. So we asked him how he'd grill his own stuff. —Elizabeth Gunnison

Skirt steaks cook really fast because they're so thin. All you need to do is sear them on super high heat for 3-4 minutes per side.

Do not overcook them, or they will get really tough. Medium-rare to medium is the furthest you can go with this cut.

Proper slicing also helps combat toughness. Slice across the grain, using a very sharp knife, into very thin slices.

Marinating a skirt steak is always a good idea, but it has plenty of fat already, so go for lots of acid, garlic, and flavor — and go really light on the oil.

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The Steak (Fancy): Bone-In Ribeye

More from Jake Dickson:

Get some nice, thick ribeyes. 1.25- to 1.5-inch thick is ideal.

Season your steaks with more salt than you think you need and a bit of pepper, but stay away from green herbs and rubs because they tend to burn.

Get the grill outrageously hot by closing the lid, and then cook your steaks with the grill top open for 4-5 minutes per side, or until you get a serious char on.

Reduce the heat and then continue to cook them for 5 to 7 minutes, total, for medium rare. You can reduce the heat by either finding one of the "cold spots" that naturally occurs on a grill, turning a gas grill down, or for a charcoal grill, pushing the coals over to one side.

You've got to let the steaks rest for 8-10 minutes, which is really important on these larger cuts of meat. For some reason when people cook outside they forget everything they know.

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The Beef Alternative: Sausage

More from Jake Dickson:

Sausages have a high fat content, so you can really hammer them on the grill. You can put them on, forget about them, and they'll still taste great.

One method is butterflied sausages. Grill them on medium heat for 3-5 minutes until just cooked through, slice them open, and then fry them up on the grill.

Another method is to grill them whole over indirect (low) heat, rotating them regularly, until they're cooked through. The reason you don't use direct heat is that if you burn sausages, you'll break the casings and lose all the juiciness.

A third method is to poach or roast the sausages in the oven so that they're 2/3 of the way cooked, then finish them on the grill for flavor. This is a great choice if you're cooking for a big crowd. Use a super-hot grill to char them up and reheat them.

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The Seafood Alternative: Octopus

Michael Schwartz, of Michael's Genuine Food & Drink in Miami, has tried just about everything in the quest for tender octopus, including blasting it with salt and beating the crap out of it with a giant dough hook. Turns out, the path to succulent octo is pretty easy: Before grilling, cook it low and slow submerged in fat until that ocean beast is so tender that a pair of tongs almost cut right through its tentacles. —Elizabeth Gunnison

Wash octopus and then rub liberally with salt. Place in a deep baking dish with the onion, garlic, thyme, bay leaves, peppercorns, and vegetable oil, making sure the octopus is fully submerged in the oil. Cover with foil and bake for 2-3 hours or until tentacles pull away from the head easily. Remove from oven and allow to sit with the octopus still submerged in the oil for 20-30 minutes. Then, remove octopus from oil and set aside; discard the oil. This step can be done up to 2 days in advance.

Preheat an outdoor gas or charcoal grill until very hot or put a grill pan or cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Cut tentacles into 6 equal portions and drizzle octopus with the 1 teaspoon of oil, season with salt and pepper. Place on grill, turning often so octopus gets a char but doesn't burn, about 3-4 minutes.

The Rub: The One You Make Yourself, with Whatever You Happen to Have Hanging Around

Chances are you've got an entire spice rack that is slowly going stale. Immediately discard the little jars you bought in a bulk pack freshman year of college, the big ones you never use from the dollar store, and any that smell like grandma's Oldsmobile. Get a medium-sized plastic container with a lid and a spoon from the drawer.

Start with powders. Anything that says garlic, onion, or chili. Mustard powder, too, if you're into zing. Spoon one or two helpings into the container. Grab the dried spices. Look for rosemary, basil, Italian seasoning, oregano, and thyme. Taste them. Bitter is bad. Add a spoonful each of whatever was still good. If you've got it, paprika can add sweetness or smokiness. Use two spoonfuls, because chances are great your paprika isn't. Want heat? A big, two-finger pinch of red pepper flakes or cayenne. Use a spoon, if you're daring. Want more sweet? Add a small handful of brown sugar. Finish with two spoonfuls of salt and one of black pepper.

Slap on the lid, shake the container, and taste. Take the meat from the fridge, coat generously, and let it come to room temperature on the counter. Grill. —Eric Gillin

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The Buns (Not Fancy): Wonder Bread Classic White Hot Dog Buns

Soft. Doughy. Gummy. Side-split. Built for the backyard. —Eric Gillin

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The Buns (Fancy): Martin's Long Roll Potato Rolls

A fancy hot dog bun? No such thing, not without entering baguette territory. But this is the closest thing we have. Decidedly middle-class and meatier than a supermarket brand, with a slight sweetness, Martin's holds up better to bratwurst but isn't so bready your supermarket frank disappears. —Eric Gillin

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The Chips (Not Fancy): Utz Crab Chips

Seafood boil again? But this time, the style is more Chesapeake Bay than Bayou. The perfect hangover breakfast chips, but odds you'll eat the whole bag? Five-to-one; with these chips' distinctive spice-mix flavor, it takes a connoisseur to keep going. —Francine Maroukian

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The Chips (Fancy): McClure's Garlic & Dill Pickle

When comedian Bob McClure and his family stole his grandmother's recipe for perfect pickles five years ago and started hand-packing them out of Detroit, he probably had no idea haute-cucumberologists from the Motor City to Manhattan would start trying to knock it off immediately. And you probably had no idea he'd start producing the most oddly appealing potato chips of the summer. But then again, neither did grandma. —Matt Sullivan

The Suggestion: Fried Pickles — So Easy a Sophomore in High School Can Make 'Em

My girlfriend and I had thought about making our own pickles this spring, more as a way to cheaply fund our addiction than contribute to the rising scum of picklers and briners and Vegemites across our neighborhood. Except the week before we were to buy the cucumbers and the fancy salt and the mustard seed, we ended up at a dinner party in Colorado where my little cousin's best friend — an aspiring and probably someday chef from a generation that watches the Food Network more often than it kisses girls — made a four-course meal for thirteen. It began with fried pickles and college basketball's regional semifinals. I gave up trying to outdo him right there. —Matt Sullivan

Drain the pickles in a colander and put a tablespoon or two of the juice in a bowl to the side. Pat down the pickles with paper towels until they're pretty dry but not too much. (If the slices are still too big for dipping, cut them in half again.)

Pour the oil into a medium- or large-sized frying pan until about half the pan is filled, then place it on the stove at medium-high heat.

Make your batter in a large bowl far enough away to protect you from the sizzling oil: combine the batter mix, salts, and peppers, mix those, add the beer or water, and throw in your leftover pickle juice, then mix again until the batter's smooth. Dip the pickles in the batter so that they're fully coated without being overwhelmed by the stuff. (Nobody needs a heart attack for an appetizer at a barbecue.)

Once the oil looks really hot, gently — and I mean gently — place the coated pickles in the pan. Make sure there's space between each pickle so they don't stick together. (This may mean you screw up and make an extra batch, but there's nothing wrong with that.) Cook the pickles until they're golden brown on both sides, then slowly remove and smother in paper towels — like you would with bacon. While the pickles are still hot, place in a metal bowl, toss with salt and pepper to taste, and serve. With dip. Ranch, maybe.

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The New Joy of Mayo

When I was a kid, mayonnaise made me gag. The thought of those turkey sandwiches, all flab and stinking with phlegmy Hellmann's, turns me green to this day. And I'm not alone: Mayo has long been the homely cousin of the condiment family. While newfangled mustards and relishes get trotted out to the gourmet shelves at the grocery store, Whole Foods, and all those ubiquitous new green markets, mayonnaise somehow got left behind in a kind of apologetic stasis.

But then I turned eighteen, went to Paris, and encountered homemade mayonnaise. The gooey emulsion was suddenly silken and decadent with a burst of fresh acid — sexy, even. It had to do with freshness, apparently, and good eggs and love. Not particularly difficult nor at all exotic, but tragically, impossibly rare in the States.

All of which set me on a quest, a quest to evangelize the glory of mayo to non-believers. A simple batch prepared at home had the power to transform the most humble piece of fish, poached vegetable, or deli chicken salad into something magic. And while it's still kind of a fattening little treat, well, treats are necessary for your health — if you're going to indulge yourself, you should do so with something simple and carefully made. As in, with care. So I've made some discoveries recently while pouring my weekends into a luxury mayo startup (don't laugh): The main trick is the oil, which is eminently infusible and the perfect medium for savory variations. It's resulted in exotic emulsions like Indian Lime Pickle, Smoked Paprika, and Japanese Red Chili. Yes. Sometimes, on a second try, the ugly cousin is the sexiest after all. —Elizabeth Valleau

(Empire Mayonnaise, available by the jar, sandwich, salad, and "Mayonnaise Doughnut" at the Brooklyn Flea, Saturdays until November; sandwich parties by appointment at empiremayo.com)

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The Mustard (Not Fancy): Grey Poupon

It's a shame that Grey Poupon positioned itself as some sort of upscale condiment, but remove the label and it's as blue-collar as it gets. It works in salad dressing. Marinades. Grilled fish. Deli sandwiches. Steamed vegetables. Hamburgers. Let's see that bottle of yellow supermarket crap do that. —Eric Gillin

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The Mustard (Fancy): Maille Mustard Dijonnaise

Well it's not that fancy, really. It's like six bucks at any grocery store. But it's what fancy French bistros use, and it's spicy as hell, and it tastes absolutely fantastic on anything that's not at all French — kielbasa, especially. —Matt Sullivan

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The Ketchup (Not Fancy): Heinz, in a Bottle

No contest.

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The Ketchup ("Fancy"): Heinz Dip & Squeeze

No more napkins for your fries, fits easily in a plastic-plate divider, easy to share — God bless America.

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The Complaint: Supermarket Salsa

Salsa: It is at once the most and least important part of a gathering. Even more so at a smattering. We sit around, waiting for the man at the grill who needs to finish his grilling ("Do you like your chicken rare?"), conjuring responses to the woman at the bar who doesn't even need answers ("Don't you love summer?"), drinking another beer that doesn't really need drinking. At that point, somewhere between hunger and boredom and halftime, a couple of chips would do you just fine. And then — what? — Tostitos Mild? Newman's Own? We are not asking for your wife's guacamole here; we merely ask for a better way to pass the time. For less processing and more chopping and much easier angles for a nice, clean scoop. (Fussing with the jar is a nice way to avoid people, but that's not really why we're here.) Anyway, bring your own. —Matt Sullivan

Mix it all together in a bowl you wouldn't particularly mind losing, then add a bunch more cilantro. Bring some extra salt if the man at the grill is a true friend.

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The Grill: The Grillery

Burning something until it tastes good. It takes a certain level of expertise, but it takes a certain level of confidence. And to be confident, it helps to have the right tools. So we asked grilling icon Steven Raichlen to help us pick the best tools around right now, including this one. —Mark Mikin

The great debate in our field sort of gets framed as gas vs. charcoal, but for me, the fuel that is superior to both is wood. Gas gives you heat and no flavor. And charcoal gives you a hotter, dryer heat with a little bit of flavor, which can be enhanced by adding soaked wood chips or soaked wood chunks. But grilling over a wood fire gives you heat and a smoky flavor. The Grillery is one of the only wood-fire grills that's widely, commercially available, designed on an Argentinean model with V-shaped grates, which channel the fat off the fire. The beauty of it is it just gives you a tremendous, tremendous amount of flavor. And, you know, it's a very sexy-looking grill.

It kind of looks like R2-D2, but it's really easy to use, it's accurate, it's easy to refuel it, and it holds an even temperature. It's funny — I have a lot of offset barrel smokers that I use because they look cool, but when we're doing a brisket or ribs and I want no fuss about it, I do it in this one.

Every time you mention a hand-crank meat grinder I think of my grandmother and her chopped liver. And it was the world's best chopped liver. But if you want to make a lot of bratwurst and chorizo, you know, hand-grinding can sort of slow you down. This one has horsepower.

This one has a very wide head, which is useful, and you want a spatula that has holes in it so it lets the steam out. You don't need a spatula for meat — because you turn it with tongs — but you do need it for fish. So a really wide one is great for turning a whole trout. What you don't want to use one for is pressing on a hamburger, because you squeeze out the juices. Which is not a good thing to do.

First of all, it's as sharp as an ice pick. It has a very slender needle, so it goes in easily. And it's digital, so it gives you an accurate read. But then it has this switchblade feel to it the way the thermometer comes out. It's grade-A.

When it's that first green-light sky in a while, and you haven't seen a grass-green yard since Labor Day, and your neighbor drained the last of the roof's communal propane just now, and you know those flat-top charcoal numbers at the hardware store won't last till next weekend, and damnit you just want to be able to have a decent steak whenever you want because you can't afford a beach house anymore, well, you take the subway straight to Home Depot and the gay guy from the plant department and the old man building the Summit Series in the corner tell you this little piece of shit was rated number-one by Consumer Reports for a reason and — to hell with it — summer's here. —Matt Sullivan

What I love about grilling beer-can chicken — like oven-roasting a whole bird — is that it's hard to screw up. Plus, the combination of chicken meat and salty skin is one of life's most soul-nourishing pleasures. The trick here is that the beer steams the chicken from the inside, leaving the meat succulent while the grill's dry, smoky heat gets that skin perfectly golden brown. Doesn't really matter what beer you use — could be a light lager, a nutty brown ale, or a hoppy IPA — as long as you make sure it comes in a can, and drink half of it before you place it up the bird's business end. Season all over, and position your upright poultry over indirect heat on a grill, like a tripod. The chicken will be ready in about an hour and change, enough time to polish off another beer or three. Summer should taste this good every day. —Evan S. Benn

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The New (Bottled) Summer Beer: New Belgium Somersault

New Belgium beers like 1554, Ranger IPA, and stuff from the brewery's experimental Lips of Faith series are in heavy rotation in my fridge. But one I could never wrap my taste buds around was Skinny Dip, a relatively low-alcohol, low-flavor ale that was this Colorado craft brewery's answer to the light-beer craze a few years back. Good thing, then, that as of May Skinny Dip's been replaced in the New Belgium arsenal by a brand-new summer seasonal, Somersault. Gently spiced with apricot and ginger, it's the ultimate six-pack to bring to any summer cookout. —Evan S. Benn

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The New (Canned) Summer Beer: Narragansett Summer Ale

You'll get two benefits from having an ice-cold, 16-ounce tallboy of Narragansett's new Summer Ale in your hand at a BBQ. One, you'll enjoy the crisp, easy-drinking flavors of a blonde ale brewed with orangey Citra hops. And two, you'll have plenty of talking points to avoid awkward conversations. Like this: "Did you know this is the first summer seasonal Narragansett has released in its 120-year history?" And this: "Red Sox announcer Curt Gowdy used to say, 'Hi, neighbor, have a Gansett,' during every broadcast in the '50s and '60s." Or this: "That building on the can's label is Narragansett Towers, which was once part of the Narragansett Pier Casino and has survived two major fires and three hurricanes." —Evan S. Benn

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The Cheap-but-Good Canned Beer: Yuengling Lager

Warning: Homer pick coming. In Pennsylvania, where I grew up and came of drinking age, you don't even have to know how to pronounce the name of "America's Oldest Brewery" (it's YING-ling, and it's German for young man). Just ask for a "lager" at the pub, and the bartender will know what to do. Somehow, like PBR, this canned, blue-collar beer has achieved cult status in recent years. Is Yuengling Lager the most interesting, flavorful, epiphany-producing brew in the land? Nah. But it goes down smooth, it's cheap, and it feels like home. —Evan S. Benn

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The Keg (When You Need It): Brooklyn Brown Ale

Look: You're going to have quite a few people over, and you're going to spend some time cooking. A less decisive person may say, "I'll get a selection of different cans and bottles, so everyone will have something they like." But you're gonna need a keg, man. So pick a good one. I love a well-made brown ale with grilled food. The nutty, slightly caramelized flavors from roasted malts elevate what's on your plate without overwhelming your palate. One of the best in America is Brooklyn Brown Ale. Call your local liquor store, tell 'em to charge $150 for a keg and tap deposit, and go throw a goddamn party. —Evan S. Benn

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